For one thing, health care doesn't live up to its own name if it segregates and excludes the medical needs—including abortion, contraception, and family planning—of some because of the discriminatory belief systems of others.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe ran a campaign to stop the attack on reproductive rights, and that meant something. After all, Virginia is a place where “personhood” legislation and a requirement to report miscarriages to the state have been earnestly considered and where laws have been passed requiring women to obtain an ultrasound prior to receiving an abortion. Another is designed to shut down abortion clinics by forcing them to adapt their facilities to follow expensive and medically unnecessary regulations. These laws were supported by McAuliffe’s Republican predecessor, Bob McDonnell.

And so it was not with just a little bit of discordance when McAuliffe turned around and chose to retain the member of McDonnell’s cabinet most closely associated with implementing his anti-choice laws: Secretary of Health and Human Resources Bill Hazel. “I am confident that Secretary Hazel will be the best steward to help me carry my agenda forward and meet the challenges we face when it comes to health care in this commonwealth,” McAuliffe said. Listening to McAuliffe and Democrats in the state legislature, Hazel is supposed to be the guy who can help McAuliffe deliver Medicaid expansion to Virginia.

There is sound reason to greet this claim with skepticism and, as previously published in RH Reality Check, dismay. The facts are what they are: Republican House of Delegates Speaker William Howell has not changed his song. “Medicaid expansion is the wrong approach,” he wrote in a commentary for The Free Lance-Star some time after the Hazel pick was announced. Just in case you didn’t get the message, his piece is titled “A Time for Magical Thinking: Responsible Alternative Must be Found to Expanding Medicaid.”

Reproductive rights advocates in Virginia, of which I am one, are being told to move on, and many are. There are decent reasons to do so: Hazel has a new boss who has pledged to stop attacks on reproductive rights. And, to indulge in the hopefully not-so magical thinking on the Democratic side of the Virginia legislature, Medicaid expansion is incredibly important.

If Medicaid is expanded under the Affordable Care Act, 400,000 Virginians stand to gain access to health care. Under a broader reproductive justice lens, which centers economic justice, racial justice, and human rights in calling for not just “choice” but the support required for maintaining healthy pregnancies and raising healthy families, Medicaid expansion is a no-brainer for just about everyone. Except, of course, Republicans in the legislature. As someone who opposed Hazel’s retention, I see no reason not to wish him very well—and support him—in the quest to turn that around.

But the selection points to a broader reality that reproductive rights advocates need to acknowledge: Pitting expanded access to ‘health care’ against reproductive rights is a false choice. For one thing, health care doesn’t live up to its own name if it segregates and excludes the medical needs—including abortion, contraception, and family planning—of some because of the discriminatory belief systems of others.

Further, whether it’s Terry McAuliffe retaining Bill Hazel or the Obama administration crafting work-arounds for contraceptive coverage, Democrats have a persistent track record of preemptively “compromising” on reproductive rights to supposedly allow health care to move forward for “the greater good.” This allegedly brilliant strategy has not satisfied the right. The bishops and their allies in the public and private sector are still pushing to kick expanded access to contraception out of Obamacare. In another instructive example, Congress just held another hearing on additional abortion funding restrictions, although Obamacare already holds several new “compromise” restrictions on abortion funding adopted with the blessing of Democrats who thought that would make the Republicans accept Obamacare.

It’s time to confront the rotten bacon: The Republican party is opposed to making health care accessible and affordable for more people. Restricting reproductive rights isn’t going to change that. It hasn’t worked. It’s not going to work. This party will keep opposing health-care programs offering support to the poor and the middle class, and this party will keep distracting everyone from that charge by loudly screaming that more restrictions on reproductive rights are needed. This is, we’re told, what a “pro-life” agenda looks like.

Health care versus reproductive rights is a false choice, and it’s reasonable to expect so-called friendly elected officials will keep on giving reproductive rights advocates this ridiculous option in future legislative battles, while expecting us to go along and get along because we must understand how important health care is. There is a gender dimension to this concern-trolling: Since the majority of reproductive rights advocates are women, it’s only natural under a sexist mindset that we would be expected to care for others first if presented with a conflict between caring for others and caring for ourselves.

It is possible to recognize this for the foolishness it is, and demand all of the above.

Now that the Indiana legislature has passed a new abortion bill intended to end safe abortion access in western Indiana, Republican Gov. Mike Pence stands at a crossroads in his political career. Since winning the governor’s race in 2012, he has tried to make Indiana’s economic climate his only issue. Will that focus continue now that he’s faced with signing an abortion bill that would play to social conservatives but could cost the state money in the long run because of costs related to unintended pregnancies?

Pence is still something of a mystery to many of the residents he now represents. A longtime congressman who was seen as being part of the most extreme right wing of the Republican party, especially on social issues, Pence avoided making those views a focus of his 2012 gubernatorial race. This garnered him a narrow win, while equally socially conservative Senate candidate Richard Mourdock lost what was believed to be an easy race.

Now that SB 371 is headed to his desk for signature, Pence will have to make a choice. Will he continue to position himself as the “moderate” governor who represents many of the views of Indiana citizens, like he did when he was on the campaign trail? Or will he again focus on the divisive “social” issues that Hoosiers rejected when they refused to vote for Mourdock?

Despite the insistence of the state house chair, the bill to stop the Lafayette Planned Parenthood from offering medication abortions really represents an economic issue. The GOP-dominated house rejected votes on amendments that would make continuing unwanted pregnancies less of an economic hardship. But that doesn’t mean the state will be able to avoid the inevitable medical and other costs that come about when safe abortion access is cut off and adults and teens, many of whom are already struggling financially, are forced to give birth.

It’s not lost on reproductive rights supporters that state legislators have veered far from their campaign promises of “jobs, jobs jobs.” “Nearly every one of our legislators claimed they’d be focusing their efforts this session on growing jobs and our economy,” Indiana Planned Parenthood President and CEO Betty Cockrum said in a statement. “Yet, this extremist legislature took aim at our non-profit and our patients—men and women who often otherwise go without care.”

The question remains whether Gov. Pence will follow the lead of the other Republican politicians and sign into law an abortion restriction that goes against the economic interests of his state and its residents. As the JCOnline.com editorial board notes, while anti-choice activists claim the bill is a necessary legislative move to protect women’s health, it is in actuality a direct assault on Planned Parenthood. And it’s unlikely to be the only one: “If SB 371 was, in fact, about getting at the cause of unwanted pregnancy, it would have included information about contraceptives available at Planned Parenthood along with the informed consent forms—which now will need to be in color, per the house version of SB 371—patients must get before having an abortion or taking RU-486. The house rejected that amendment on Monday. No matter how hard SB 371’s sponsors protest otherwise, this is a surgical strike …. [J]udging on momentum building in the General Assembly, don’t expect SB 371 to be the last shot at Planned Parenthood.”

Pence has been a formidable foot soldier in the war against Planned Parenthood during his national legislative career. While in Congress, he attempted to defund Planned Parenthood federally, despite the fact that the Title X funding Planned Parenthood receives is not used to fund abortion care. As he told Politico in a 2011 interview, “If Planned Parenthood wants to be involved in providing counseling services and HIV testing, they ought not be in the business of providing abortions. As long as they aspire to do that, I’ll be after them …. What’s clear to me, if you follow the money, you can actually take the funding supports out of abortion. We then have a much better opportunity to move forward to be a society that says yes to life.”

Pence, who has often referred to himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order,” was an active supporter of the anti-choice movement while in Congress, especially during March for Life. In 2011, he released a statement to marchers urging them to focus even harder on eliminating the right to choose. “These are trying times in the life of this nation,” said Pence. “Our economy is struggling and our national government is awash in a sea of debt. Amidst these struggles, some would have us focus our energies on jobs and spending. We must not remain silent when great moral battles are being waged. Those who would have us ignore the battle being fought over life have forgotten the lessons of history. As in the days of a house divided, America’s darkest moments have come when economic arguments trumped moral principles. A nation that will not stand for life will not stand for long. You know there can be no lasting prosperity without a moral foundation in law.”

Pence distanced himself from his social-issues crusade when he began his run for the governor’s office in 2012, leaving abortion, birth control, Planned Parenthood, and other divisive issues out of his campaign stump speeches and “roadmap.” He vowed to concentrate on strengthening Indiana’s economic well-being, although his continued refusal to buy into federal Medicaid expansion showed his reticence to completely disconnect from his past, even if it was in the best interest of Hoosiers. In February, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazettewrote:

Pence, in communication with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, instead has asked that Indiana be permitted to use the Healthy Indiana Program to serve an expanded Medicaid population.

Pence said the federal program is “rife with waste and fraud.” Indiana’s plan has a 98 percent approval rating from participants, and it encourages wellness and healthy behavior.

The Healthy Indiana Program may, indeed, be promising, but it’s too little, too late. It covers just 40,000 Hoosiers, with 46,000 more on the waiting list. The pool of Indiana residents eligible for coverage under the federal Medicaid expansion – up to 138 percent of the poverty line – is 400,000, most of them working-class Hoosiers whose employers don’t provide health care coverage or offer insufficient policies.

As IU’s Carroll notes, the decision is not between giving vulnerable residents a choice between Medicaid and private health insurance – it’s between giving them Medicaid and nothing.

Will the new, more “moderate” Gov. Pence veto SB 371 and allow Planned Parenthood of Lafayette to continue to provide abortions to individuals in the area who can’t travel to other locations in the state? Or will the former congressman return to his old ways and sign on with the ideological social-issues agenda of conservative cohorts, even at added expense to the state and to the detriment of financially struggling women in western Indiana? If he does sign, Pence may feel the wrath of the majority of Hoosiers who support keeping abortion safe and legal when he seeks re-election.

With an anti-choice politicians in most of the major top political rolls in the state, it’s little wonder that Wisconsin abortion opponents are downright gleeful about restricting access to abortion during the 2013 session.

Of course, no one really expected them to be quite so public in their glee.

“We are in a very good place in Wisconsin,” The Capitol Times reports Assembly Speaker Robin Vos saying at a recent Wisconsin Right to Life Legislative Conference, where anti-choice advocates and politicians met to discuss their plans for the year. “We have a pro-life Legislature, pro-life governor in Scott Walker and a pro-life attorney general (J.B. Van Hollen). We can all wrap our arms around this agenda.”

First up in that “arm-wrapping” agenda is a forced ultrasound bill, including use of an invasive vaginal ultrasound for early terminations of pregnancy so that a “heartbeat” can be heard. Wisconsin Right to Life director Barbara Lyons declares that forced ultrasounds are needed “not only [to] save lives…but save women a lifetime of regret,” according to the Times.

Lyons later explained that it was just critics who would claim that a vaginal ultrasound would be needed, despite the fact that it is virtually impossible to hear a hear a heartbeat without a vaginal ultrasound until at least 10 weeks gestation.

The proposed bill is called the “Woman’s Right to Know her Unborn Child Act,” and unsurprisingly, it is not being embraced with open arms by abortion rights supporters.

“It is not surprising that anti-choice politicians are once again attempting to insert themselves between a woman and her doctor, mandating medical procedures which, in this case, would force women early in pregnancy to undergo a trans-vaginal ultrasound before obtaining an abortion,” Jenni Dye, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin told RH Reality Check. “Vos, [Senate Majority Leader Scott] Fitzgerald, and other anti-choice politicians in Wisconsin clearly did not get the memo voters sent in November – we are tired of divisive attacks on women and are ready for politicians to focus on jobs and the economy.”

“These anti-choice politicians need to do their own job and stop trying to do our doctors’ job.”

Reproductive health and rights were once again the subject of extensive debate in state capitols in 2012. Over the course of the year, 42 states and the District of Columbia enacted 122 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. One-third of these new provisions, 43 in 19 states, sought to restrict access to abortion services.

This article was corrected at 9:23am ET on January 2, 2013. An earlier version incorrectly stated that exceptions to abortion for rape and incest were allowed under legislation in Louisiana and Georgia.

Reproductive health and rights were once again the subject of extensive debate in state capitols in 2012. Over the course of the year, 42 states and the District of Columbia enacted 122 provisions related to reproductive health and rights. One-third of these new provisions, 43 in 19 states, sought to restrict access to abortion services. Although this is a sharp decline from the record-breaking 92 abortion restrictions enacted in 2011, it is the second highest number of new abortion restrictions passed in a year (see here for a more detailed analysis).

Against the backdrop of a contentious presidential campaign in which abortion and even contraception were front-burner issues—to a degree unprecedented in recent memory—supporters of reproductive health and rights were able to block high-profile attacks on access to abortion in states as diverse as Alabama, Idaho, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Similarly, the number of attacks on state family planning funding was down sharply, and only two states disqualified family planning providers from funding in 2012, compared with seven in 2011. That said, no laws were enacted in 2012 to facilitate or improve access to abortion, family planning or comprehensive sex education.

Abortion

Twenty-four of the 43 new abortion restrictions were enacted in just six states. Arizona led the way, enacting seven restrictions; Kansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Wisconsin each enacted at least three. Although some of the most high-profile debates occurred around legislation requiring that women seeking an abortion first be forced to undergo an ultrasound or imposing strict regulations on abortion providers, most of the new restrictions enacted in 2012 concerned limits on later abortion, coverage in health insurance exchanges or medication abortion.

Mandating Non-Medically Necessary Procedures Prior to Abortion: Mandatory ultrasound provisions are intended to convince a woman to continue her pregnancy to term and require a provider to perform an ultrasound even when one is not medically necessary. At the beginning of 2012, it appeared that a number of states were poised to adopt such laws. However, in February, a firestorm erupted in Virginia when it became known that the proposed mandate would, in practice, force performance of a transvaginal ultrasound. The controversy not only led to passage of a somewhat weaker requirement in Virginia but also is widely seen as having blunted efforts to mandate ultrasound in Alabama, Idaho and Pennsylvania. With the addition of Virginia, eight states now require an ultrasound prior to receiving an abortion.

Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP): In 2012, Arizona, Michigan and Virginia took steps to establish stringent regulations that affect only surgical and medication abortion providers, but not other providers of outpatient surgical and medical care. A law enacted in Arizona requires the state health department to develop regulations that include rules on follow-up procedures after a medication abortion, requirements for reporting abortion complications, and penalties for noncompliance. In Michigan, legislation enacted at the very end of the year directs the state health department to develop regulations that will require providers that perform at least 120 abortions per year to meet the same architectural and licensing requirements as ambulatory surgical facilities. In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell approved regulations requiring all abortion clinics performing at least five procedures a month to meet the same architectural standards as hospitals; the regulations now return to the Board of Health for the final review.

Hospital Privileges: Legislation requiring abortion providers to have hospital admitting privileges was introduced in five states and enacted in three (Arizona, Mississippi and Tennessee); this provision is not mandated for other outpatient surgical and medical providers. In the most stringent of the new laws, the provision enacted in Mississippi requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital and to be certified in obstetrics and gynecology or eligible for certification. As soon as the restriction was signed into law, the state’s sole abortion clinic filed a legal challenge. In July, a U.S. district court judge ordered that the clinic be given time to apply for hospital privileges. By December, when all local hospitals had refused privileges to the clinic’s providers, the agency once again asked the court to enjoin enforcement so the clinic can remain open.

Later Abortion: Arizona, Georgia and Louisiana enacted measures to ban abortion prior to fetal viability in direct conflict with U.S. Supreme Court decisions. Moreover, the exceptions contained in these restrictions do not allow for an abortion when necessary to protect a woman’s life or health, as required by the Court. Of the three laws, only the Louisiana law is in full effect. It bans abortion at 20 weeks postfertilization (22 weeks after the woman’s last menstrual period or LMP). Due to a court order, the enforcement of the Georgia ban is limited to abortions after viability. Both allow exceptions to protect the woman’s life, avert “substantial and irreversible” damage to the woman’s physical health or terminate a pregnancy that has been diagnosed as “medically futile.” Arizona’s provision prohibits abortion at 18 weeks postfertilization (20 weeks LMP); enforcement of the restriction has, so far, been blocked by the ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals. Aside from the disputed Arizona and Georgia provisions, seven states ban abortion at 20 weeks postfertilization.

In addition, a New Hampshire provision restricting so called “partial-birth” abortion will take effect in 2013, at which time 19 states will have such bans.

Abortion Coverage: Alabama, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin enacted provisions banning abortion coverage in the insurance exchanges being established under the Affordable Care Act. These restrictions limit a woman’s ability to obtain a health care plan that provides for her full reproductive health care needs and treats abortion as separate from other health care services; 20 states now restrict abortion coverage available through state health insurance exchanges.

Medication Abortion: In 2012, three states limited provision of medication abortion by prohibiting the use of tele-medicine, which is becoming a routine part of health care, particularly in rural areas. Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin enacted provisions requiring that the physician prescribing the medication for the abortion be in the same room as the patient; seven states now prohibit the use of telemedicine.

Mandatory Counseling and Waiting Periods: South Dakota and Arizona enacted provisions requiring a woman seeking an abortion to obtain counseling that includes inaccurate or irrelevant information; 18 states now require that women seeking an abortion be given misleading information, such as asserting a link between abortion and an increased risk of breast cancer or negative mental health consequences. Meanwhile, the new ultrasound mandate in Virginia requires that women who live less than 100 miles from the clinic undergo the ultrasound 24 hours in advance of the abortion compelling women to make two trips to the clinic before receiving an abortion; 10 states now have laws that necessitate a woman to make two trips. Also in 2012, Utah increased the length of its mandated waiting period from 24 to 72 hours.

Parental Involvement: Two states adopted requirements that either mandate parental involvement or make it more cumbersome for a minor to use the judicial bypass procedure to obtain an abortion in the absence of parental involvement. Voters in Montana approved a ballot initiative requiring that the parents of a minor under 16 be notified prior to an abortion; this measure replaces an existing state law that had been blocked in court. New Hampshire enacted a provision that extends the time a court may deliberate on a judicial bypass request from 48 hours to two business days; 38 states require parental involvement in a minor’s decision to have an abortion.

Family Planning

Family Planning Funding: Family planning programs largely escaped steep budget cuts in 2012. Of the 19 states in which funding decisions were made through the legislative budget process, family planning funds were the subject of steep cuts only in Maine, where funding was slashed by 25%.

Restrictions on Family Planning Providers: In 2011, seven states moved to disqualify certain family planning providers from eligibility for funding (Kansas, Wisconsin, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Indiana and Texas), but only two states added new restrictions in 2012. Arizona and North Carolina effectively barred family planning clinics not operated by health departments from being eligible for family planning grant funds; in practice, these restrictions affect only clinics operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates. That brings to nine the number of states that restrict access to family planning funds.

Insurance Coverage of Contraceptive Services: Provisions relating to contraceptive coverage mandates—and specifically which employers may refuse such coverage—were introduced in eight states and enacted in two. Arizona expanded its existing exemption to permit any employer or plan enrollee to opt out based on their religious belief, while Missouri attempted to add an exemption from the federal mandate included in the Affordable Care Act. The Missouri exemption has been blocked from enforcement by a state court. Eight states have an “expansive” exemption to their contraceptive coverage mandates.

Adolescents and Sex Education

Between 2007 and 2010, seven states enacted legislation related to sex education, and all but one expanded access to comprehensive sex education or added requirements that the sex education provided be medically accurate. Over the past two years, however, five states enacted legislation, and all but one supported abstinence-only education; 26 states now stress abstinence in sex education.

Six states and the District of Columbia enacted provisions related to reproductive health and exposure to harmful substances such as lead, mercury, Bisphenol-A (BPA) and pesticides. Provisions to protect children from lead exposure were enacted in Louisiana and Nebraska. Meanwhile, Connecticut, Illinois and Oregon took steps to keep mercury out of the environment. Also, Illinois banned the use of BPA in reusable bottles and cups for young children, and the District of Columbia required the development of regulations prohibiting the use of pesticides near most schools and child-occupied facilities.

The medical community has been clear: intrusive laws restricting abortion care undermine the relationship between health care providers and their patients and are based on political ideology, not on providing the best possible care.

The October 18 edition of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) features a compelling “sounding board” titled, Legislative Interference with the Patient-Physician Relationship. “Increasingly in recent years,” the authors argue, “legislators in the United States have been overstepping the proper limits of their role in the health care of Americans to dictate the nature and content of patients’ interactions with their physicians.” The piece addresses laws regarding a number of areas of health care, but a primary focus of the interference the authors challenge is women’s health, and particularly access to abortion care.

And around the country, state medical associations have been taking up the cause, openly opposing harmful laws. From the Idaho Medical Association:

“It is the policy of the IMA [Idaho Medical Association] to oppose inappropriate interference by the government and third parties that causes a physician to compromise his or her medical judgment as to what information or treatment is in the best interest of the patient.” (Idaho Medical Association House of Delegates July 27 – 29, 2012, Resolution 04 (12) Protecting the Patient-Physician Relationship)

And the Texas Medical Association:

“The sanctity of the patient-physician relationship is the foundation of health care in America, and it must be preserved to assure candid communication and allow patients to evaluate their care options. The Legislature’s role should not be to dictate how physicians and patients communicate with one another or what procedures and diagnostic tests must be performed on a given patient.” (Letter from the Texas Medical Association opposing SB16 requiring an ultrasound before a woman can obtain an abortion, full letter available here.)

These statements are a sharp rebuke to legislators around the country busy passing laws that interfere with women’s health care. These are laws that mandate ultrasounds whether or not they are medically necessary; laws that require women to receive baseless, medically inaccurate information such as being told abortion causes breast cancer or suicidal tendencies; laws that make women wait as much as three days before getting an abortion; and laws that limit access to medication abortion, forcing some women to have an unnecessary surgical procedure, and the list goes on. As stated in the NEJM, “by reducing health care decisions to a series of mandates, lawmakers devalue the patient–physician relationship. Legislators, regrettably, often propose new laws or regulations for political or other reasons unrelated to the scientific evidence and counter to the health care needs of patients.”

Anti-choice lawmakers often try to argue that these laws promote women’s health and protect women from bad decisions. But the reality is just the opposite; they harm women by taking the important decisions about their individual care away from them and their doctors and instead put them in the hands of politicians.

The medical community has been clear, intrusive laws restricting abortion care undermine the relationship between health care providers and their patients and are based on political ideology, not on providing the best possible care. This latest series of rebukes should put to rest the specious, transparent and patently false argument that these laws help women. They have no purpose other than to put up barriers to accessing abortion care and shaming and stigmatizing the women who are able to overcome those barriers.

The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has released an updated list of clinics a woman seeking to terminate a pregnancy can visit in order to obtain the state-compelled ultrasound now required prior to actually getting an abortion. Removed from the new list are two affiliates that weren’t clinics at all, but rather “satellite resource” centers — Keim Center of Suffolk and Keim Center of Portsmouth. The list, however, adds no new information for those places to obtain an ultrasound other than crisis pregnancy centers, which exist for the explicit purpose of deterring women from terminating a pregnancy, using misinformation and ideology to do so.

“While this new list is seemingly an improvement, VDH still lists five CPCs that don’t, according to NARAL’s 2009 report on CPCs, meet the statutory requirement,” said Katherine Greenier, Director of the Patricia M. Arnold Women’s Rights Project, American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. “That’s not to mention the fact that the others are still CPCs even if they do meet the statutory requirement.”

In other words, the CPCs do not meet the following legal requirement:

“At least 24 hours before the performance of an abortion, a qualified medical professional trained in sonography and working under the supervision of a physician licensed in the Commonwealth shall perform fetal transabdominal ultrasound imaging on the patient undergoing the abortion for the purpose of determining gestational age.”

The fact that they are CPCs is still the biggest concern. Regardless of their roles in trying to coerce women into carrying pregnancies to term, there is no medical oversight, accountability, or regulation of procedures in CPCS. Moreover, CPCs refuse to guarantee that they will keep medical data private. All of these are grave concerns in a state where politicians from Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Bob Cuccinelli — who is running for Governor — on down are so clearly willing to put their personal ideology over medical safety and women’s rights.

This isn’t the first time the state of Virginia has chosen to push CPCs as a place for women to obtain information on their reproductive health. As part of the “A Virginia Guide to Family Planning, Genetics and Social Services” the state provides a listing of centers that offer support to women when it comes to having children, including numerous crisis pregnancy centers, yet it does not list one family planning clinic that might offer contraception to those seeking to delay their next pregnancy or who’ve achieved their desired family size and want to prevent another pregnancy altogether.

By releasing an updated list of available, no-cost ultrasounds, the Virginia Department of Health implies that the new set of providers will provide ultrasounds that can be used to meet the forced ultrasound required by the state prior to an abortion. But in reality that is still not the case. It is clear that VDH is less concerned about whether or not women receive medically-accurate — even if medically-unnecessary and coerced — ultrasounds than it is in directing women to anti-choice indoctrination centers to undergo a state-compelled medical procedure that would likely not even meet the criteria for what the state is forcing women to do to get an abortion.

Gov. Bobby Jindal signed bills Thursday increasing the waiting time between a mandatory ultrasound and an abortion, requiring abortion providers to describe the results of that procedure to the woman and offer to let her hear the fetus’ heartbeat and prohibiting anyone who is not a physician from performing abortions.

The bill becomes law August 1, but won’t be enforced until September 29th to give providers time to learn about the new regulations and receive updated paperwork from the Department of Health.

This article has been updated to add a response from Hannah Brass, Legislative Director of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest.

It’s officially over. The Idaho House has announced that it will not be holding a hearing on the forced ultrasound bill before the session ends this week, meaning that the bill is officially dead for 2012.

“I spoke with the right-to-life people this morning,” [House State Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Loertscher] said. “They agreed that there’s not much that can be done with the bill this year. … We will not be scheduling a hearing on it.”

Loertscher said of the bill, “The big problem that’s been identified is the mandatory ultrasound.” He said it presents a significant enough legal problem that it could cause a federal court to toss out Idaho’s entire existing informed-consent law for abortion. “We certainly don’t want to do damage to that,” he said.

Idaho Right to Life is vowing they will return the bill next year, possibly as one where the ultrasound isn’t mandatory, but simply mandating doctors tell the women seeking terminations that they “have the right” to view one if they choose.

But for now, reproductive rights advocates are happy to see the bill off the table for this year, and vow that when the bill returns, so will the pressure to block it. Hannah Brass, Legislative Director of Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest, said:

“We applaud those members of the legislature that stood against SB1387 and government intrusion into private medical decisions. The public made it clear that no matter where in the state they live and no matter where on the political spectrum they are, the government mandating an ultrasound for political reason, and not medical, is the very definition of government intrusion. Women, and men, in Idaho are watching and voting to ensure lawmakers know that this sort of mandate, that demeans and shames women, is not ok now or ever.”

The bill is believed to have stalled primarily due to both the concerns of local constituents and the national attention that the bill received from across the country.

In other words, thank you to all of you who called, emailed, tweeted or posted messages on Facebook about the Idaho forced ultrasound bill. You really did make a difference.

The amendments approved in committee would: tighten regulations on who can perform ultrasounds; require disclosure of the cost of the ultrasound; extend the ultrasound requirement to dozens of other medical procedures; tie insurance coverage of erectile dysfunction medication to that of birth control pills; and require counseling for men seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction.

The original sponsor of the bill, State Rep. Joe Lyons, needless to say is unhappy with what he calls these “hostile amendments.”

“If you want to kill my bill, kill it on the House floor,” said Lyons.

“Men’s Health” protest laws have been popping up all over the country, requiring exams for erectile drugs, vasectomy disclosures and so on, but this appears to be the first time a proposal has been used to actively attack anti-choice legislation. Here’s hoping it’s the first of many.

]]>http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/23/illinois-democrats-poison-pill-mandatory-ultrasound-bill/feed/1Was a Texas Reporter Fired Over Coverage Of The Ultrasound Law?http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/22/was-texas-reporter-fired-over-coverage-ultrasound-law/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=was-texas-reporter-fired-over-coverage-ultrasound-law
http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2012/03/22/was-texas-reporter-fired-over-coverage-ultrasound-law/#commentsThu, 22 Mar 2012 20:01:13 +0000After an attempt to spread the story of one woman's brush with the new law, a reporter is now in the unemployment line.

]]>Carolyn Jones’s heartbreaking story in the Texas Observer detailing her emotional ordeal as a victim of the new Texas mandatory ultrasound law quickly spread across the internet as the face of what real world consequences these anti-choice restrictions have on women’s lives.

It also may have gotten a Texas reporter fired.

According to the Houston Press, radio reporter Scott Braddock interviewed Jones on his show at KROI News. But when he discussed the interview and played pieces of it at a guest hosting gig on a different station, he was promptly fired.

No one is entirely sure why Braddock was fired over the story. Some think it may have been because he didn’t clear his guest spot with management, although his lack of a contract should have ruled that out. Others say that the station’s owners may not have known how to deal with a reporter discussing his own stories, as the rest of the stations in the portfolio all play music.

But all area agreeing that Braddock should have kept his job, especially if the issue was that he critically discussed the unpopular new law. He is apparently seen as a calm, rational and unbiased journalist by all who have worked with him. Even Texas Right to Life called him a rare commodity in broadcasting today” who’s fair to both sides, reports the Dallas News.